Rests and respelling

Rests
I’m struggling with how rests are implemented in Write Mode - I can’t work out what the comma achieves. To date I’ve been implementing rests by positioning the carat where the next note should be and obviously anything in between is a rest with Dorico selecting the appropriate rest values. However, if I make a mistake - e.g. entering a note with a greater value than should be the case - I can’t rectify the mistake by changing the additional note value back into a rest without coming out of note entry mode and deleting the note.

Respelling Accidentals
I’m using a midi keyboard to enter notes …. I’ve found the keystroke that respells accidentals but not the one selects individual notes within a chord so that the edit can be made while you’re still in note entry mode. Also the program doesn’t seem to acknowledge respelling, if you play the same chord again in the same bar, you’ll have to respell it again. It’d be good if that could be changed.

Any help with the above would be gratefully received - thanks.

I, too, find that to be an inconvenience and hope it can be changed down the road.

You don’t normally need to use the comma, but it lets you enter “forced rests” where Dorico will never change the notation of that rest.

When you press “,” you toggle the “rest” icon on the left hand panel on and off (Click on the icon does the same thing, of course).

When the icon is on, if you enter a note (by pressing A-G on the keyboard) Dorico will actually enter a rest. If you also have the “G clamp” icon on (press O or click the icon), Dorico will never be combine that rest with another one to make a longer rest.

Usually, you don’t need to do any of the above. pressing “space” advances the cursor by the current note duration without creating anything in the score. When you enter the next note, Dorico will “back-fill” the stave with the appropriate rests.

I don’t understand exactly what you mean when you asked about correcting the length of notes, but experiment with doing this “insert mode” (press I) as well as in “overwrite mode”. In insert mode, try (1) selecting a note or rest and then selecting a new duration, or (2) selecting a note or rest and pressing delete. You might discover a better way to do what you want.

Thanks Rob, much appreciated. That all seems to work perfectly.

When the up and down arrow keys are working properly in Write mode, you should be able to use them (once the caret is not shown, of course, as the caret uses the arrow keys for navigation normally) to hop between the different notes in a chord and then use Alt±/= to respell them.

Thanks, Rob — very helpful.
I am beginning to find entering notes is coming much more naturally now. It’s just a matter of practice!